461 replies to this topic

[Lauri]

It's what I wanted to do in Echoes, and it worked pretty well in the alpha there.

Indeed it does

[Gfire]

Well, I think it would make sense for the hoplite to have a version which was faster and able to catch up with skirmishers, and one which was stronger in phalanx.

What about Peltasts? Two upgrades for them and that should make enough units.

[mike_]

Actually, Gfire, what you've thought of is exactly what the Ekdromoi were. Lighter-armed hoplites for scattering enemy peltasts and holding the regular hoplites until their own could show up to relieve them. So if there were three classes of units - Peltasts, Ekdromoi, and Hoplites - then we could have a base system to work with for both factions before upgrading them differently for each until they were unique enough.

Maybe the different kinds of secondary weapons - xiphos, kopis, and ax - could each be upgraded-to from the standard spear-hoplites? Each weapon would do a different kind of damage: thrust, slash, and pierce, respectively. Or the equivalent... I haven't worked with BFME in ages.

For cavalry: I think that the best option would be to use a single scout unit with either low attack or no attack, and no crush damage.

[Lauri]

There's SLASH, PIERCE, SPECIALIST (used for spears) and since it won't be needed any longer, we can use URUK for thrust

How are you thinking about these secondary weapons anyways?
I'm thinking that it might be cool if there's a chance that the spear breaks, is lost, or something, they draw up their secondary weapon and use that for the rest of the game. Possibly being able to rearm with new spears at an armory, if we can get that working... might take a look at how the ring system works, if it's possible to grant upgrades upon entry (basically, granting all hoplites a Upgrade_Spear from the start. If they loose it, the they change weapon. If they regain it, they get it back)

Ah, there's so many ideas to look into. I reinstall BFME2 a couple of hours ago even. I've even started on the mod! (Removed movies at start-up, changed Men to Sparta, added text to the opening picture "BFME2; The Peloponnesian War"... yeah, I've been gooood)

[Kwen]

What should we do about music? I'm pretty sure the LotR music wont fit well with this theme..

[mike_]

I was thinking of that, but didn't think it would be possible so that would be great if possible. I was actually thinking that, in the first place, all Hoplites would be recruited with spears and could upgrade to one of the weapons mentioned above, but if you can get that working then I think that it could work best.

Also, about the timeframe: I was thinking that for heroes, we could use historical figures that became more famous after the actual wars between Athens and Sparta. Why? Because nobody likely to play the mod would know who these figures from the Peloponessian War were, so going with easier-to-recognize warriors would make more sense.

So, for example, I'd do something like this:
Sparta: Leonidas I, Lysander.
Athens: Themistocles, Xenophon.

Surprisingly, Lysander was around for the timeframe, so that's good But you get my point, yes?


EDIT: I'd worry about music after we've got most of the actual game content somewhat concrete...

Edited by mike_, 02 November 2010 - 10:56 PM.

[Lauri]

I get your point, and it is valid I think
Still like to see what other options we have... but I doubt there's many

I'll have to see if there's a way. If there's a way, we'll have to see how it works out.

Music.. well, if we find any great songs that are free to use, feel free to say so. Shouldn't be to hard to add, no?

[Gfire]

As far as the weapons go, I'd rather not over-complicate it with the broken spears or lots of damage types. I mean, just using SLASH and PIERCE like in age of empires should be enough. I think it would be really annoying to play and have the spears break all the time, and if it was random it would be really imbalanced.

Since the armor system is percent-based, there's no real difference between armor and having more HP. I like to simplify it in my mods by having %100 damage taken by default and like %50 from pierce for units which have "pierce resistance" aka shielded units, siege weapons and buildings. Then I use the DamageScalar in the weapon for the rest. So, instead of taking reduced damage in different amounts for each thing, you have simple armor and each weapon is customized with a possible bonus against a unit group.

That's how I do it, I find it easier to understand as the coder and the player of the game. The player knows exactly how much damage will be taken because that unit takes %100 damage from slash, and the slash unit deals X damage, which can be displayed on a fake button on that unit to make it easy on the player. Units with a special passive resistance to 1 specific damage type would also have a fake button for that. The buttons could be added later in the polishing stage, I think it's a nice touch to improve BFME.

Of course, this damage system is fairly different but I think it would be easier to do and much easier to balance, I've used it before and it's a pretty solid system, it makes combat a lot more about the actual combat and not all these values you don't know which may or may not play in your favor.

What would be cool is if you made it so you could lose units in a horde but replace them individually for a cost back at the base. Otherwise you'd have this issue where you have trouble keeping your units alive, and you'll have to pull back a horde if only one of them is close to dieing and the others still have a lot of HP. By adding a way to replace units but not making it free, you aren't forgiven for losing %90 of the horde but you aren't stuck with a single-unit horde, either.

[Lauri]

Broken spears aren't spears that they'll fight with that's acctually broken.. it's simply "oh, it broke, better use my secondary weapon". There wouldn't be much difference in damage, but simply in what type of damage. I don't think it will add much imbalance at all, since it would likely be for both Sparta and Athens. Besides, it's not like it's going to be very common to break the spear, if it's even possible to get that working!
A toggle might even be a better idea That way we choose what kinds of secondary we want, upgrade them with it, and the toggle..

I find it better to use more than just SLASH and PIERCE.. It's easier to balance as we go, because there will only be slight adjustments to the different armoursets after upgrades. Upgrading your armour against spears or thrusting swords is only possible with armour, not by degrading the other teams weapons in the damagescalar. I know there might not be much differences in the types of damage, but I'd like to keep it open none the less. Even if armour against SLASH, SPECIALIST and URUK would end up all being the same And there is a difference between health and armour. High health means that you'll live longer in general, while low health with specific armour parameters means that you die faster against weapons that kill you easy, and last longer against the rest.

I just think that we should have some complications on the weapons vs armour... Having only SLASH and PIERCE will result in a simple model, that only takes one thing into account: Is it ranged or melee damage?
Then it substracts the damage done. With techs you'll only ever get more overall damageresistance, or health.
I'm leaning more towards specializing the troops, meaning different kinds of armourattachments, that's good against this, but will leave you open to that.

edit:

Edited by Lauri, 03 November 2010 - 12:46 AM.

[Gfire]

Yeah, I understand, but I don't like that idea of the broken spears still.

I'm not sure what you mean, the upgrades would still be in effect but base armor would be %100 by default. The damagescalars are only for unit-specific bonusus, but wouldn't be necessary for this mod because of the upgrades.

You're right, though, we could have Thrust damage type as well, and have the specialized upgrades. I don't think any additional damagetypes are necessary, but idk what weapons would be available. For this, my system doesn't quite work, you're right. But I think the default armor should still take %100 damage from all types, to keep things in scale (we can adjust health if that value seems off) and then the upgrades could use AttributeModifiers in order to stack without having to create an armor for every combination of upgrades.

I don't think it would be too simple just to have the two damage types, but I think three would probably be the perfect balance.

Since there will probably be toggle formations, perhaps instead of a weapon toggle the unit could just automatically use the weapon which does the most damage against the target? Many games have that and BFME has it for units like Trolls, as long as it doesn't dumb it down too much, but I think having formation toggle and weapon toggle isn't really a good idea. It might work though.

[Kwen]

What do you guys think of a walk/run feature? Heavy infantry will be forced to walk by default, and only can run when attacking. Just like trolls.

I mean, how often did Greek soldiers run to their destination? They marched.


I have begun making a unit ini file that can be the foundation for these units. Clean, with no bfme upgrades or features. And we can from there add what we please.

It will have default weapons/armor speed and stats. The foundation for units.

[Mathijs]

Marching sounds good, yes.

[Kwen]

I've already tested it in game, and it's really quite nice to look at. And it adds usefulness to light infantry/scouting units because they will be quick and nimble and can move around the map quickly.

[mike_]

Sounds good to me, then.

[_Haldir_]

I like where this is going

A comment about music: There is this site which contains a database of game music (including things like Age of Empires or Total War series). I'm not sure how legal that would be though.

Buildings-wise, would both factions have the same models/buildings? I always liked the look of houses in the AoE series, which really gave you a built up feel. You could have a house structure which increases CP (maybe it's the only building which does..?), which i think would look cool scattered between your main buildings, giving you choke points and what not.

Also, will there be siege weapons in this mod? Or atleast a buff to the health/armor of structures? BFME2 always annoyed me in how easy it was to take down structures.

Oh and i haven't downloaded it yet, but Rise of Rome looks like an interesting BFME mod. It's old, but apparently it has a new soundtrack and a bunch of new maps. And its BFME2 sequel might give you some neat ideas/inspiration. Apparently the BFME2 version is meant to include a Greek faction, but i don't know if it ever got finished. It also has a "choose your god" type thing which could be worth a look for your upgrade system.

And perhaps some blood effects would be cool for this mod, especially as it's taking on a very realistic, historical feel.

[Kwen]

The houses is a good idea, just use the cp buildup that farms give.

And I think we should use more realistic building/unit health systems, I agree that BFME2 was all messed up. But since everything will be getting its own stats anyways, i'm sure it will be pretty easy to fix this.

Rise of Rome was very good, it's dead now isn't it though? Would be great for inspiration.

Blood, I think it would look good if we had a hit fx that was as simple ad a small blood splash. and maybe a small puddle like fx upon the units death. The trick would be to guarantee that it lays under the unit, because sometimes they move pretty far from their start point when they die.

[Lauri]

I think health should be quite similar across the board. But a villager (please please, can't we name them that for retro's sake?) has only clothes, so he would have 100% armor against everything by default.
Now, a light infantry has some armour, and depening on what, he's more resistant to damage, so yes, the default armour would be 100%, but SLASH, SPECIALIST, PIERCE, URUK and others would get specific values reflecting the type of weapon vs the actual armour the unit is wearing. If he's wearing a shield he should get more resistance against arrows, even like 50% or in that area, because he can block them out then. If he doesn't have one, he's in a bad shape.
A heavy hoplite will have even more armour to start with, so they'll be even tougher.
Get what I'm saying? I think it's a little dull to reflect it by adjusting their health to be honest.. then it's basically Damage - Health, instead of Damage - Armour + Health. I think we should lay some down to the armour department that's all.

Of course, it would help if others joined the issue to help rest the case

I veto for Siege weapons.. or, vote at any case.. I want to see realistic things, so buildings would be torn down by siege equipment best, but possible by units.

[Gfire]

I think that running only when attacking is somewhat silly... You'll end up with these exploits where players find something to attack across the map in order to move faster, and whatnot. It's realistic, sure, but I'm not sure about gameplay. On the other hand it could be an interesting mechanic. If you say it works well in-game, I guess we can go for it.

The house system is good, I like adding a separate building so you really have to manage your CP. If you can't keep up with building houses you will fall behind. (Also not sure what kind of resource collection system will be implemented, I like the villagers gathering idea but I'm not sure how farms would work, preferably much like AoE but idk if that's possible. I'd like if it were simpler than AoE since there's only one resource and if the income could be more consistent that would be a plus.)

As far as blood goes, I think it would add a level of violence which should be present around Spartans. As long as it's not too extreme and doesn't add lag.

As far as buldings go, it would be pretty easy to get the HP balanced. As we go we can decide how many structures are really needed (such as how many production structures are required to keep up spending your income, etc,) and how vulnerable they should be. Off the top of my head I can design initial values for structure health in scale and it would be pretty close to optimal, with a lot of tweaking necessary, if my past work is any indicator. (I'd love to put damage/HP about in scale with Age of Empires and Starcraft in order to get the best sense of balance, since I'm most familiar with those games as far as that goes.)

I think it should be fairly unit-based, perhaps no towers/walls, and you won't have to worry about siege weapons, which are of course good for outranging towers. It would also help add a level of aggression and not a turtle vs. mass siege weapons sort of game.

As far as heroes go, I'd prefer just to have a captain-style unit and no heroes, but whichever.

So in the plans thus far, there's no real splash damage or crushing involved, probably no real meta impact at all, and I really like that.

As far as the armor goes, I don't really care whether it's the HP or all the armor values are at a different scale, in-game it doesn't matter. Armor would be more realistic, but it doesn't make that much difference.

Cavalry I guess could have more HP but little or no armor and a very weak attack.

As far as units killing buildings goes, perhaps they could use a different weapon against buildings? In age of empires three infantry throw little flaming somethings at structures, perhaps they could pull torches out of nowhere and attack the buildings, or something? Ranged units could throw something on fire, with about the same range as their standard attack probably.

Also, I would say buildings should be able to be upgraded in level at a cost and level up via exp. I feel this is the best. Perhaps they should even level up to level 10, but take less money/exp. (Maybe %10 increase in production each level making a total of %100 bonus at level 10 for units to train in half the time, and the upgrade cost would always be the same.)

[mike_]

I like the idea of walking versus running, though I'll need to see it in use myself before making a decision on it.

Houses sound like a great idea. An idea I just had, actually, would be to basically be able to create your own city-state. Your fortress (idea! For Athens, it could be the Acropolis, with corresponding fortress upgrades 'n such, while the Spartan fortress could be the Agoge) would act as a citadel, with houses, barracks, and the other buildings creating a growing nucleus around it. Athens could have walls, while Sparta wouldn't. This could be a great opportunity for the player to customize their base as they like, while retaining the basics of the faction. Could be very interesting

I agree with Gfire on the blood - so long as its subtle and not too laggy, it could be a great asset to the mod.

I think that we should have siege engines, but of limited variety (ie, JUST ballistae and rams) and they should be the only viable weapon against walls and buildings. So long as infantry is the main focus of combat, I'll be happy

Maybe we could compromise on heroes - having just Create-a-Heroes, with some of the figures I mentioned before being premade and ready to go for the players.

I agree with the sentiment of no meta damage - it's not very realistic for this style of warfare.

Gfire's ideas for buildings leveling up and upgrades sounds great to me!

[Spartan184]

Yeah what Mike said with the running with attacking, its so easy to bypass it I do it all the item with trolls I just tell them to guard something where theres enemy units and it runs and when I want it to stop I stop him.

Edited by Spartan184, 03 November 2010 - 02:40 AM.